We’re using a fairly loose definition of a Chain Brewpub. We decided that the locations all need to have brewing equipment and a Brewpub Chain needs to have 3 or more locations in order to make our poll. Wikipedia’s definition of a chain store is:

“Chain stores are retail outlets that share a brand and central management, and usually have standardized business methods and practices. These characteristics also apply to chain restaurants and some service-oriented chain businesses.”

They don’t actually state a number, but we decided that if you have three or more brewing pub/restaurant locations under the same name or branding then we could classify them as a chain of brewpubs.

Anyway, enough with the fine print… Vote! (names in poll are randomly assigned)

This Poll has closed!

If your favorite Brewpub Chain got left off the list please post in the comments. If you want to see how we came up with this list, read this forums thread.

Most likely.

But there’s only one way to find out. Go visit tomorrow night, or throughout the weekend and see if their TVs are still working. If not, maybe someone at the bar would like to have a conversation instead? Plug in your address in our search engine to find out which bars or brewpubs are closest to where you are right now!

Visit your local Brewpub or Beer Bar on Friday afternoon to see if they still have TV (and good beer) available!

Chicago is a great city to visit and a super city to drink beer in. We’re starting our theoretical trip on Friday around 5pm and we’re running it through Sunday brunch/lunch. We’re going to assume that you brought some money and we’re going to assume you don’t mind taking public transportation or cabs. And here we go!

Friday

5:00 pm Friday: Your cab from the airport has safely transported you and your belongings to some shanty hotel that you probably won’t see very much of. You have now made your way to one of Chicago’s best beer bars: The Map Room (beermapping link) at 1949 N. Hoyne Ave. The Map Room is phenomenal, the taplist consists of 25-ish taps always rotating and a very large list of bottles. Map Room does not have food on any consistent basis, but at 5pm you’re just getting started so you can settle into a fairly comfortable table near a window and enjoy a couple of great beers.

7:30 pm Friday: a half mile stroll south down Damen Ave would put you right in the middle of the trendy neighborhood of Wicker Park. We’re not here to look for “black frame” glasses stores or starbucks though. We’re headed to Piece Pizza (beermapping link), one of Chicago’s best brewpubs. Piece is well known for their award winning wheat styles and over the past few years they have started blasting palates with really hoppy beers with rather dirty names (Camel Toe IPA, Moose Knuckle Barleywine…). If you’re getting hungry, you may want to order a New Haven style pizza with bacon, mashed potatos and a white sauce. Or you may want to hold off on eating a bit longer until our next stop.

9:30 pm Friday: another short half mile stroll south brings you to East/West running Division Avenue. There are two bars down here that we will be checking out. If you neglected to grab some pizza at Piece, you will probably be in need of some food, so we’ll go east a few storefronts to Jerry’s Sandwiches (beermapping link). Jerry’s only has 100 sandwiches to choose from, but hopefully that will be enough. The tap selection here is usually very solid, and if there is nothing available there to please you, there are lots of bottles too.

Further to the west down Division, you will find Small Bar (beermapping link). Small Bar also has food so you could hold off for some fried cheese curds with honey mustard dipping sauce. The taps at Small Bar are often somewhat similar to Jerry’s Sandwiches, but there should be a few differences. Small Bar and Jerry’s both have nice patios, so if you are here with someone who doesn’t like sitting at the bar, you might find yourself enjoying some Chicago weather. You can easily kill 2 or 3 hours between Small Bar and Jerry’s, so this is where we will end our night and catch a cab back to our Hotel/Motel/Hostel. We’ll need our energy for Saturday!

Saturday

11:00 am Saturday: We’re making our way down to State and Grand and we’re hitting Chicago’s Rock Bottom (beermapping link). Pete Crowley, head brewer, makes some awesome beers here. Usually you can find a barrel aged beer or two on tap, make sure to ask your server or bartender for the special beers available. The food at this location is pretty good too, so we’ll be grabbing an appetizer to get our day started (recommended appetizer: Titan Toothpicks). Our next stop will also include many food options, so don’t go nuts and order a whole entree.

1:30 pm Saturday: We went underneath Rock Bottom Chicago and we caught the Red Line of the El (Chicago’s public transportation train). Headed north, we only travelled three stops to the Clybourn/North stop. From here we walked three blocks up Clybourn to Goose Island’s original Brewpub location (beermapping link). They usually have more than 15 Goose Island beers available for you to drink here and at least 1 cask at all time. The restaurant has recently undergone some changes and they are heavily focused on “gastropub” like fare. Pork is king at Goose Island Clybourn and we suggest you get a solid base for the rest of the day’s drinking by ordering the Cubano sandwich. Pair that with something from the cask engine and you’ll be thanking us, guaranteed.

3:30 pm Saturday: Next is a short walk up Sheffield to Local Option (beermapping link). Local Option isn’t well known outside of the Chicago beer scene, but it usually has one of the best taplists in town. The taplist doesn’t focus just on regional or American beer, it’s a strong reflection on what is happening in beer today. And if you can’t find anything on tap that excites you, ask the bartender if they have anything special in bottles!

6:00 pm Saturday: Our next stop is a bit further north. We have again jumped back on Chicago’s El (red line) to get to Sheffield’s Wine and Beer Garden (beermapping link). Sheffield’s is home to the Beer School bar (along with two other bars inside the building). If the beer school bar is open, you should definitely head back there and check out their available taps. You will not be disappointed at Sheffields in either the front bar or the back bars. Relax and enjoy. If the weather is nice, you can hang out in the beer garden, or if it’s nasty outside sit back by the fire and enjoy the warmth.

8:30 pm Saturday: We now have our name on the list for dinner at Hopleaf (beermapping link) in the Andersonville neighborhood. We have used the red line again to get this far north and by now we’re a pro at catching a train and avoiding eye contact with bums. Hopleaf is a belgian focused bar with some incredible food. I suggest ordering the CB&J (cashew butter, fig jam and creamy morbier cheese pannini) or just go with the Mussels Frites (Steak Frites is also one of my favorites). With 30 taps of Belgian and regional beer and a bottle list that may well blow your mind, you can’t go wrong at Hopleaf. Make sure you try a Metropolitan Brewery beer, brewed three blocks away.

We will end our night here, thumbing through the list and dreaming of a bottomless wallet and limitless time to enjoy it all. Head to bed. By now, you need the rest.

Sunday

10:00 am Sunday: We are now officially packed up and we’re doing brunch at the Publican (beermapping link). With a Publican Mimosa (Berliner Weisse and orange juice) in front of us, we’re waiting for dishes full of pork and egg to be delivered to our table. We have fond memories of the past few hours, some hazier than others. And we are in desperate need for another 36 hours before we have to return to work. We are also not 100% sure that we won’t be calling in sick on Monday.

Mental Note: Chicago’s beer scene is A-OK!

If you already knew about Craft Beer Week, you might be unaware of the fact that May is not only “Drink Corona for One Day Month”, but it is also, National Hamburger Month! Because these two celebrations overlap, May just might be the best month ever.

In order to make preparations for finding flavorful craft beer and juicy hamburgers, you may need to consult some Beer Maps. You can plug in your address (or the address of your office if you need a 3 pint lunch). Or you can use our search and proximity features to find other craft beer serving locations nearby your favorite beer bar that might also be putting the special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.

If you need help while in the car, we also have a GPS subscription service available that will allow you to download all locations on the site into a very easy to use POI file for your GPS navigation system. And the mobile version of the site, has a fully functional search system with tiny little maps that should work just fine on most mobile phones. Bookmark beermapping.com/m on your phone for easy access on the go.

For more information about American Craft Beer Week you can also check out the facebook page. For more about Cheeseburgers, check out the Cheeseburger Show thread in the forums.

Check out the: Free the Hops ‘Drink Pretty Good, Don’t It’ Rare Beer Raffle.

Starting at a mere 4 dollars, you can toss your name into the raffle. They have 15 different really sweet packages you can win at the moment, but that number will increase if enough raffle tickets are purchased.

Beers like Three Floyds Dark Lord, Lost Abbey’s Angel’s Share, Surly Darkness and Foothills Sexual Chocolate are just a taste of what is being raffled off.

Check it out, and give what you can to help Free the Hops reform the archaic beer laws of Alabama!

I saw a few cameras snapping so I expect to see a few pictures posted in the forums thread sometime in the near future, but for now you can watch the video I shot off and on throughout the event. I split it into two parts, the first part is here and the second part is here.

Since I know how lazy you all probably are, sitting on the couch surfing the net on your webtv; I will also embed the video in this post so that you can just move your mouse slightly to make it play. Enjoy!

Note there are a few miliseconds of pixelated boobs and possibly some foul language in this video. The video also moves and pans a lot, so be prepared for that.

If you want to keep up with what our members are saying; here’s where the after crawl forums posts start.

For the past three years we have pulled willing beer lovers through the city of Chicago. We rely on both CTA “EL” Trains and Busses to help us cover the long distances, but we do spend a fair amount of time walking from beer bar to brewpub to brewery.

This year the crawl will take us on a rather exciting route with stops from Lincoln Park, all the way up to Andersonville. We will be stopping primarily at Beer Bars, but we also have a great trip/tour planned through one of Chicago’s newest Breweries, Metropolitan!

Our starting point is in Lincoln Park at Local Option at 1pm (show up at noon if you want to get lunch). From there we will travel to Sheffield’s, Risque, Metropolitan, Hop Leaf and possibly a few others along the way.

Check out this thread for more information about the crawl.

Feel free to follow that account or our other accounts:
@beermappinglotd (Once a day post of our Location of the Day)
@beerinator (Beer Mapping’s founder and Chief Cartography Officer)

Note: if you want a list of practically all the breweries on twitter, feel free to follow the people we’re following. We are following a solid list of more than 170 breweries that beernews.org collected and it would be easier to follow them directly from our page than from clicking all the links on beernews.org.

Back already? You should get out your sharpie and add “Beer Wars” to Thursday, April 16th.

If you’re reading this site then you definitely will enjoy watching the trailers that they have released for the film. It is showing, one night only with a live feed after the movie ends with a discussion from a panel of craft beer enthusiasts, writers and brewers.

Not only is this a beer movie in actual theaters, but they are linking back to The Beer Mapping Project too! Whoohoo!

Now, go find your theater and reserve your tickets.

Or as some politically correct people will say: Fo-Fricking-WaBAB (which doesn’t roll off the tongue as well). Either way, tomorrow is the Sixth Annual Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beer (or probably when you read this, it’s either today or a few days ago).

This is an event put on by the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild and it is pretty fricking awesome.

Here is the website for the event: illinoisbeer.com

Beer Mapping is a sponsor and we will have a small presence there. Look for some people wearing Beer Mapping gear or just gather under the Beer Mapping banner and maybe we’ll swing by to say hi. We should be there both sessions, pacing ourselves, and as of right now the list is looking really good.

We’ll see you there, or possibly at the next Beer Mapping sponsored event!